CHICAGO, Ill. - Freshman Tinashe Marowa scored early in the game and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee men's soccer team nearly came up with the shutout in the 2015 exhibition opener before settling for a 1-1 draw with Loyola University Saturday evening.
 
"We took the lead with a really nice goal; a really nice finish," head coach Kris Kelderman said. "We had the lead at halftime and then changed the entire 11 on the field. We played one group the first half and one group the second half, we got as many players in as we could."
 
The Panthers scored in the 13^th minute and the defense held tight until the Ramblers leveled the contest in the 75^th. Kelderman, who has 14 new freshmen out of the 27 student-athletes on the roster, took advantage of the opportunity by playing 11 different players each half of the contest. The teams did not play any overtime periods.
 
"That was our plan from the beginning no matter how the game was going," Kelderman said. "We wanted to see everyone play, give everyone an opportunity to showcase themselves individually. It was a good exercise for us and we learned a lot about a number of guys. This is a tough place to play and I thought the guys showcased themselves pretty well."
 
The Panthers came out the aggressors and ripped off four shots in the first 12-plus minutes. They opened the scoring at the 12:25 mark, with Marowa heading in a 10-yard cross from classmate Josh Kaye at the far post.
 
A look at the stats showed an 8-8 tie in shots, with Loyola earning five of the six corner kicks in the match. Of the eight shots that UWM registered, senior Declan Rodriguez and sophomore Reid Stevenson (two each) were the only players to record more than one.
 
Junior Liam Anderson played the first 45 minutes of the contest and made a pair of saves in his first action. Senior Agustin Rey was credited with one save in the second half.
 
Milwaukee has one more tune-up, set to take on SIU Edwardsville in an exhibition at 6 p.m. August 21.